NFC versus BCC

The eGo pairing requires an initial means of connection based on very close proximity with the eGo compliant device. This very close proximity avoids ambiguity about which two devices are being paried. The concept of easy pairing is essential to connect two devices within a wireless world. There are two canditate technologies to play this role:

The NFC technology (Near Field Communication) described basically with several IEC/JTC1/SC17 standards such as the ISO 14443 standards.

The Body-Coupling Communication (BCC) principles described on this web site, inherits from a standard defines in the ECMA-401. Some other tentatives of standardization related to Body Area Network technology is on going within the IEEE organization.

Both NFC and BCC technologies allow a close proximity pairing, making the selection of the eGo compliant device unambigous.

NFC requires moving the antennas of each device close to each other while BCC does not.

Consequently, BCC technology is wearable where NFC is not.

Advantages of wearable technology

A wearable technology is physically attached to the user's body and makes possible the application of SSO (Single Sign On) technology. SSO technology allows pairing between a user and his/her eGo only once, whereas NFC technology requires a pairing between user and eGo for each transaction. SSO technology meets the user's expectations for intuitive and fast transactions.

Single sign-on (SSO)

Single sign-on (SSO) is a property of access control of multiple, related, but independent software systems. With this property a user logs in once and gains access to all systems without being prompted to log in again at each of them. Single sign-off is the reverse property whereby a single action of signing out terminates access to multiple software systems. As different applications and resources support different authentication mechanisms, single sign-on has to internally translate to and store different credentials compared to what is used for initial authentication